Like the Schleswig-Holstein question, the few people who still understand the arguments about the post-Leveson royal charter are dead, mad or past caring. Those who thought that it could all be safely forgotten once it had been settled by parliament a few weeks ago may need to think again. The newspaper industry – part of it, anyway – bit back on Thursday by publishing a rival to the royal charter passed by MPs on 18 March.

Back to the drawing board? Some will say no. They will argue that parliament is sovereign and that no other industry would be allowed to challenge the settled view of Westminster in this fashion. Others will counter that the final political agreement on press regulation was thrashed out in a rushed and sloppy way and that – since free expression is arguably the most precious freedom of all – it's important to get the detail right

The press charter differs from the parliament-approved charter in one main respect: it seeks to remove the need for a two-thirds majority of both houses to amend it. In place of this it offers a triple lock: nothing could be altered without the agreement of the board of the new regulator, the recognition panel established to oversee the regulator and the industry's own trade associations.

Is this a constructive attempt to engage by sections of the press who looked ready for a long and probably ugly fight, or a sullen gesture of defiance? We have previously argued for a pause to allow a new regulator the time and flexibility to test aspects of the new system – especially around third-party complaints and a new system of resolving legal disputes cheaply and quickly. We also have anxieties about the medieval constitutional vagueness of a charter which is at the mercy of private discussions between the government of the day and royal functionaries.

Is the proposed triple lock a good solution to these anxieties? It could be a workable idea – but not if, as proposed, the newspapers still have the power to veto even the "independent" members of the new regulator. That was dismissed as ridiculous by MPs, yet here it is again. This does not look like consensus building; nor does the removal of a role for newsroom whistleblowers or the (deliberately?) weak language around arbitration.

How could the bona fides of the drafters of the new charter be tested? What we need now is less of a Sunday-night stitch-up – or, indeed, a Thursday-lunchtime stun grenade – and more of a Good Friday agreement. Incredibly, since Leveson reported, there has not been a single meeting of press, politicians and other interested parties, including victims of newspaper intrusion. It may be they have more in common than they think. But who will play George Mitchell?